Spectra Extreme Braid Update

My spool of 30lb braid got its first run out on the beach at Sandsend last night. I tried a couple of speculative casts without any bait to ensure no wind knots occurred and the leader knot travelled smoothly through the rod rings before baiting up and trying my first cast in anger. I was pleasantly surprised at how smoothly the braid peeled off the spool and cast. I'd love to say that the new braid allow me to cast much further but I'm still having trouble getting past the 90yd mark.

They All Count

Ok so they don't really all count but at least this little fella saved a blank for me last night. I'd been cod fishing yesterday evening at Sandsend near Whitby and had received lots of sharp raps on the rod tip most of the night. A group of anglers beside me had caught a few under sized flatties and I suspected these were the culprits. I down sized my rig to a 2 hook size 1 flapper rig baited with lug and squid and kept my fingers crossed. The last cast of the night resulted in the coddling of 5 or 6oz and saved my embarrassment.

Spectra Extreme Braid

I reloaded my shallow spool on my beach reel tonight, I opted for Spectra braid as I was pleased with the performance of the 60lb braid I use for fishing over rough ground. I went again for 30lb breaking strain and found it a bit more supple than the SeaKnight braid but more importantly it breaks at more or less at 30lb of pressure.
I'm heading to Sandsend beach on Tuesday night so we'll see how it goes, eyes open for wind knots.

SeaKnight Braid

I retied the leader to my spool loaded with 30lb SeaKnight braid last night. While I was busy tying the leader I also stripped some of the line off to help prevent a recurrence  of the wind knots that had occurred on previous sessions. I used some of the line to carry out a breaking strain test so that I knew what I was dealing with and the results were very disappointing. I tied one end of a length of braid to something heavy and the other to a set of Avon scales and steadily increased the pressure. Over the course of several tests the line broke anywhere between 15 and 20lb pull.

I'll be buying a different brand of line and reloading my spool, before I do though I'll be repeating the pull test.

Leader Knots

I had a small issue last night. An issue that irritated me beyond all belief and mainly because it was my fault.
On mainly sand beaches I opted to use 30lb braided main line in order to try and steal an extra few yards, to make it safer to cast I also attached a 60lb mono shock leader connected with an Alberto knot. The stub of the shock leader really rattles through the rod rings and I had the distinct impression it caused the lead to slightly falter in the initial phase of the cast.

Last night during my second cast the lead appeared to falter slightly and at the same time a knot of braid caught around the first rod ring and the braid mail line parted. During a previous session a similar thing happened but the line stayed intact.
I blamed the leader knot but it also has come to light that I may have over filled my spool which can cause wind knots. With these 2 issues in mind I have decided to strip some line off the spool and switch to an FG knot.

I swapped out my spool during the session and with 60lb braid and a decent sized bait my best cast was 95 yards with consistent casts between 80 to 90 yards. I'm looking forward to seeing what distance I can get with 30lb braid and a bit more confidence.

Hard at Work in Nigeria

A good friend of mine is on a diving job offshore in Nigeria, he tells me he's hard at work but this picture tells a different story! Glad to see health and safety reaches into fishing.

Hard Won Worms

My beach fishing mate and teacher rang me one evening last week and invited me down at low tide for a worm digging lesson. We were targeting black lugworm, or yellow tails, that live in deep borrows at the low tide line. Because of the position on the beach that they live its best to target them on a lower tide ie less than 1m above tide datum and so for this reason I found myself on the beach in the pouring rain and pitch black!
Martin showed me the method he uses to dig the black lug and I went off to hone my method and managed 1 worm to his 2. One of the reasons for this, other than my inexperience was the width of my shovel which made my digging heavier and therefore slower giving the worm a sporting chance of escape! The very next day I was in B and Q purchasing a narrow bladed shovel.
Lugworm come neck and neck or slightly runner-up only to crab in the cod bait stakes and black lugworm are head and shoulders above blow lugworm. As I'm not using them within the week I opted to freeze my nights work.